SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP
NEWSLETTER - MAY, 1988
CLUB INFORMATION
The SLO BYTES Newsletter is a monthly publication of
SLO BYTES of the Central Coast of California (San Luis
Obispo) an IBM/compatible personal computer user's
group. Information found in this Newsletter is
derived from magazine articles, manuals, books, other
PC user group newsletters, and our own members. The
purpose of this publication is to inform our members
of meetings, their program content, and other
information related to the use of IBM-PC's and
compatible computers. Dues to SLO BYTES are $18 per
year. Newsletter only is $10 per year. As a member
you will receive a membership card, a new member
manual, SLO BYTES monthly newsletter, and free use of
our Public Domain Library. Contributors are asked to
submit articles for the next issue by the 15th of each
month either in writing or on disk (ASCII format
preferred). Address all correspondence to SLO BYTES
PC USER'S GROUP, % Bob Ward, 2100 Andre' Ave., Los
Osos, Ca. 93402. Phone 8am-5pm 756-2164, after 5pm -
(805)528-0121. Other user's groups have permission to
publish any material found in this newsletter.
Treasurer: John Rohde
1214 Vista Del Lego
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
Have a computer related item to sell? Tell the editor
and we will put it in our newsletter. For further
information call Bob Ward at (805)528-0121 eves or
leave a message on our BBS.
SLO BYTES BULLETIN BOARD
(805) 528-3753
2400/8/N/1
PC Files & Message section.
SYSOP: George Campbell
All Welcome - 24 hours
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Meetings are held the 1st Thursday of every month,
unless noted otherwise in the newsletter calendar, at
7:15 pm. New users SIG 6:15 to 7:00 pm. Meeting
place: Cal Poly University Biology Department, Science
North 213 (new users SIG) & 215 General meeting.
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DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$
Discounts usually apply only to regularly priced
merchandise. Ask a salesman to make sure. You must
present your membership card to receive a discount.
Paradise Computers 5% - all computers, peripherals,
441 Marsh St. and software.
San Luis Obispo 10% - Ribbons, paper, disks &
544-7127 other expendable items.
Star Computers 5% - any software in stock.
655 Morro Bay Blvd.
Morro Bay 10% - paper, ribbons, cable &
772-7827 other supplies.
Computer Logic 10% - off list - all computers,
973 Foothill Blvd. software, computer periphe-
Store #4 rals and products. Contact
San Luis Obispo Bruce, Paul, or Dave for
544-8347 your discount.
WITCO Computers 10% off complete systems.
3563 Sueldo, 5% off computers alone
Building B 10% off already discounted
San Luis Obispo peripherals, & supplies but
549-0811 not including software.
FISBOSA Systems 10% - off packaged systems, soft-
3121 S. Higuera, F ware &/or peripherals when
San Luis Obispo purchased with system. Con-
549-9027 tact Lynne Boisen.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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|| ||
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|| FLOPPY DISKS 4-SALE ||
|| ||
|| @ ||
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|| THE MEETING ||
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|| DSDD UNFORMATTED SYNCOM GENERIC 360K ||
|| with labels, tabs, and tyvek sleeves ||
|| ||
|| 1-9 ....... $.75 ||
|| 10+ ....... $.70 ||
|| ||
|| HIGH DENSITY DISKS 1.2 MEG ...... $1.10 ea ||
|| ||
|| NEW LIBRARY DISKS ......... $.90 ea ||
|| ||
|| Epson Ribbons (MX,FX) ||
|| Narrow - $3.00 (2 left) ||
|| ||
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$$-4SALE-$$-SWAP-$$-TRADE-$$-4SALE-$$-SWAP-$$-TRADE$$
IBM PS/2 MODEL 30
Dual 3.5" floppy disk dirives, 640K RAM, monochrome
monitor.
Includes software & data migration cable.
Still under warranty .
Asking............. $1250.00 or best offer
Call Mitchell Kasdin @ 528-7518
-----------------------------------
TSR-80 Line printer VII (serial, 80 columns)......$ 75
TSR-80 Color computer external disk drive.........$125
Call Bob Ward @ 528-0121
-----------------------------------
Will trade valuable art work for computer.
Call Jay Schmidt for details @ 489-2218
$$-4SALE-$$-SWAP-$$-TRADE-$$-4SALE-$$-SWAP-$$-TRADE$$
dBASE IV ... A WIN - WIN SITUATION
By French Morgan
Are you looking for a database manager? Are you
trying to figure which of the multitude of database
managers you should consider? If you go with 'the
flow', you'll select Ashton-Tate's dBASE III PLUS.
BUT after reading the recent issues of INFO WORLD and
PC MAGAZINE, you've got to ask; 'How in the world can
anyone recommend selecting dBASE as a database
manager , especially with all of the other database
managers available today!'. It's easy! Not only is
the 'language of dBASE' nearly a standard (and there
are groups working on establishing it as a standard),
but dBASE is still the undisputed 'king of the hill'
of relational database managers. True, it is not the
complete database manager, nor does it have as much
power as a few of the competitors' DBMS, and it is
definitely not the easiest program to learn, BUT ...
there are few programs that are so entrenched in
corporate and small business settings as dBASE III
PLUS. There is support and there is support ... while
Ashton-Tate doesn't go nearly as far as WordPerfect or
WordStar in offering unlimited, toll free support
(you're given 90 days after purchase and registration,
and it's your 'dime'), Ashton-Tate can rely on a large
family of users, user groups, electronic bulletin
board conferences/help, books by MANY authors, and the
most offered course of the common PC variety software
in America. In other words, you can almost always
find someone or a source of help without a lot of
effort ... AND it's going to get easier! Because
dBASE IV is here!
The recently announced dBASE IV will fill in most of
the weak points of dBASE III PLUS, but at a big price.
And because of that, Ashton-Tate has also announced
that dBASE III PLUS will be supported as long as there
are customers. And that means that all of those
vendors that market ADD-IN and ADD-ON products (such R
& R RELATIONAL REPORT WRITER, Comtel's Instant Editor,
and H.J.S. Research's DEBUG III for dBASE) WILL be
here for awhile, making those great products even
better AND making dBASE even more powerful.
dBASE IV will have everything but the 'kitchen sink',
but such a powerful software package will demand a lot
of your computer (512 KB of free RAM, just to start).
If you have the computer to run such a powerful
package and need that much power, then dBASE IV will
be for you. I emphasize WILL because it may be awhile
before you see it (announced for July '88, but look
for no earlier than September/October '88 as the
trades have it).
The best is yet to come ... dBASE IV ... AND ... dBASE
III PLUS! What a way to merge to the future ... the
best of both worlds!
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COOL OFF YOUR PC!
By David Flushing, Saint Louis PCUG
Reprinted from GS-BUG Newsletter, 10/87
Overheating is becoming a more common cause of
microcomputer failures as older machines are expanded
with accelerator boards, hard disk controllers,
expanded memory and network cards. Overheating
problems are some of the most difficult to diagnose
and correct because they're frequently intermittent.
As expansion boards are added to a PC, additional
power is required from the power supply. Both the
power supply itself and the expansion board generate
additional heat. Although the 135-watt power supply
in an AT can usually take the additional loads, the
anemic 63.5-watt power supply in the IBM PC can
rapidly become overloaded.
A variety of power supplies are sold by third-party
vendors to increase the power capacity of your PC, but
most do not address the additional cooling
requirements imposed by the cards that consume the
additional power. Because of the microscopic
tolerances involved in the manufacture of computer
chips, small changes in temperature result in
significant physical changes in dimension. This can
be sufficient to cause a unpredictable temporary
malfunction in the affected chip but not necessarily a
complete failure. Each time the temperature changes,
the internal components of your PC expand or contract;
it's only a matter of time before stress and fatigue
result in a malfunction. Reducing both the
temperature and the range of the temperature change
will significantly increase a microcomputer
component's MTBF (mean time between failure).
Accelerator boards are probably the largest consumers
of power and generate the most heat. Sometimes the
processor chip gets so hot you can not touch it. Not
only are the type and number of boards a factor in
heat generation, but their location relative to other
heat-producing boards can make a difference as well.
A good rule of thumb is to keep the biggest power
consumers separated by less hungry boards and keep the
largest consumers on the outside, where there is more
room to radiate heat.
Ribbon cables from ports and hard drives, which are
snaked between and on top of boards, can restrict air
flow and cause premature chip failures. Operating
your PC in a warm room can also shorten its life. The
key things to remember are to keep it cool, keep the
range of temperature from maximum to minimum as small
as possible, and keep the frequency of temperature
changes to a minimum.
ICING YOUR PC WITHOUT GETTING BURNED
A variety of accessory products address the problem of
how to keep a PC cool; they range from add-on fans
that mount externally on the power supply exhaust vent
to expensive specialty fans that mount in front of the
card cage to blow additional air over the expansion
boards. The ideal solution would be a product that
increases the power capacity of your PC, maintains the
OEM design power specifications and still increases
cooling capacity.
Turbo-Cool power supplies from PC Cooling Systems of
Bonsall, California meet this requirement and then
some. After I crammed my original IBM PC with two
hard disks, EGA, 2MB of memory and a multifunction
card, my replacement 135-watt power supply was nearing
its maximum capacity and the whole PC ran very hot.
The 150- and 200-watt Turbo-Cool power supplies not
only provide additional cooling, but exceed IBM's
specifications as well - something my made-someplace-
in-the-Orient power supply didn't. The 150-watt model
should be sufficient for most configurations. PC
Cooling claims a temperature reduction of 25 to 40
degrees Fahrenheit by supplying over twice the airflow
and a noise reduction of 50% compared to the IBM
original.
Installation was simple and straightforward. Despite
having to remove two drives to create enough
maneuvering room in my cramped PC chassis, the job was
completed in less that ten minutes. Turbo-Cool comes
complete with 4 power leads. The usual hard-to-find
and overpriced Y required to power more than two
devices is not needed. The twin 12-volt ball bearing
fans mounted on a beveled-top chromed chassis look
well-integrated and designed. Fit and finish are
excellent.
Since the noise from my fan never bothered me, I
didn't measure any reduction in decibels. Temperature
was my major concern: I had measured temperatures in
excess of 133 degrees in the car cage after continuous
operation for over 12 hours in an ambient temperature
of 79 degrees. After installing Turbo-Cool, the
maximum temperature recorded thus far is 98 degrees
under the same conditions.
If you're running "furnace emulation" boards in your
PC, XT or AT, additional cooling capacity may be worth
investigating. I highly recommend the Turbo-Cool line
of power supplies; PC Cooling Systems has provided
what IBM and clone makers should have supplied in the
first place. The popular model TC-150 supplies 155
watts and 112% more air flow for only $149 each in
quantities of less than six. If you need both
additional power and cooling, this is a bargain. If
you require additional cooling, the TC-150 is a
quality product providing protection to extend the
life of your investment.
Contact: PC Cooling Systems
31510 Mountain Way
Bonsall, CA. 92003
(619) 723-9513
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TO PARK, or NOT TO PARK
by
Grey Staples, CDP
Phoenix IBM-PC User Group
Reprinted from the Phoenix IBM-PC User Group
Newsletter.
If you thought parking only had to do with cars,
you're misinformed, because the hard disk with your PC
also can have a parking problem.
Let's lift up the hood and look inside those ten
million, or so, bytes of rotating memory in the
computer. The disk looks like a stack of records
(platters) with a tone arm (read/write arm) for each
record.
The important consideration here is that the disk
platters are constantly rotating, while the read/write
heads are literally "flying" over the magnetic
surface. But, what happens when the power is turned
off? Those "flying" heads need to land somewhere.
Where depends on what kind of hard disk unit you have.
Some will sense the loss of power and mechanically
lift the heads off the disk surface. Others can
periodically retract the heads to a "save" area away
from the data sectors. Still others will just leave
the heads where they stopped (dropped). If your disk
drive documentation doesn't explain this detail, ask
your dealer, he or she might know.
The "safe" area is variously called a "landing zone",
"parking area", or "shipping site". It is usually
located at a high cylinder number (concentric circles
on the platter surface). So a ten megabyte disk with
306 cylinders would have its "landing zone" at maybe
cylinder 320. DOS only knows about the first 306
cylinders anyway.
That way, if the disk were to be bounced during
shipping, the heads would not damage any data.
Without the "parking" ability the read/write heads
might act like a lathe during a power loss situation
and score the disk surface (this is called a head
crash). Additionally, the heads may be damaged as
well.
So how do we "park" the heads on the fixed disk? The
XT and AT come with a Diagnostics disk which has a
"shipping" option. Other manufacturers typically
supply a utility program which will accomplish the
same action. How do we know if the park was
successful? You can't usually ask the disk to report
its location. Just the process of running a program
to ask would probably unpark the heads. I use a "seat
of pants" approach. When you boot the computer, BIOS
first locates the master boot sector at the low end of
the disk. You would see the "disk in use" light glow
for "longer than usual" indicating that the heads were
being (slowly) moved from cylinder 306+ to cylinder 0.
When to park the disk? It's like asking when to wear
seat belts. At the very least use the "park" utility
when you move the machine. After that it's a question
of style. I prefer to park the disk just before the
computer is turned off each day. Who knows what the
cleaning people might be up to? I like a program that
can be invoked from a BATCH file. For example, there
is a program appropriately named PARK on the Bulletin
Board. You could build a BATCH file which only
contains a PARK and a PAUSE (to avoid returning to
DOS). The trouble with using the IBM Diagnostics disk
is that you have to boot the computer with their
special operating system. The diagnostics program
SHIPDISK will not run under normal DOS, since the XT
and AT versions use unusual interrupt codes. I tried
it on an XT (DOS 2.0). It parked the disk and then
took a flying leap into an old program in memory and
hung up the computer.
Messy Parking!
With this discussion of what, where, how and when to
park the read/write heads on a hard disk, we address
another area of how to preserve your computer data.
So, when in doubt, play it safe and PARK your hard
disk.
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| |
| COMPUTER SWAP MEET |
| |
| |
| |
| THE COMPUTER SWAP MEET AT MEADOW PARK ON |
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| JUNE 21st HAS BEEN |
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| CANCELLED -- CANCELLED -- CANCELLED |
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CALENDAR
June 2nd Computer Magazines - The Best and
Worst. An overview by George Campbell
(Rescheduled from March.)
SCIENCE NORTH 215. -- 7:15 PM
Swap meet during meeting.
July 7th TIME & MONEY by Carl Schleicher
(tentative)
Please note the room change for the months of April,
May and June. Disks will still be copied in Fisher
Hall 292 during this time.
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TREASURER'S REPORT
John Rohde, treasurer, reported the following income &
expenses for the month of May, 1988:
Beginning Balance: $ 1206.47
Income: $ 449.30
General Expenses: $ - 91.71
=========
Ending Balance: $ 1564.06
Current Membership: 175
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NEW MEMBERS
A warm welcome to the following new members.
FIRSTNAME LASTNAME HOMEPHONE
============ ============= ==========
Marlyn Bumpus 481-3020
Jud Frye 481-7561
Mark Harklerode 528-7863
Howard Hotchkiss 541-3883
David Knoch 481-4713
Jack Prince 481-1332
Mark & Mary Putnam 481-3631
Joseph Seebach 438-4105
Kenneth Stilts 528-0770
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WHAT'S HAPPENING
Last month I took the opportunity to demonstrate
Qmodem-SST at the general meeting. Qmodem is one of
the two most popular shareware telecommunications
packages in the software industry... the other being
ProComm ver 2.4.2. We started off the meeting with a
lengthy discussion of Qmodem's installation program.
By typing QINSTALL several installation menus appear.
Although 95% of the defaults will be compatible with
your system, it's still a good idea to cursor through
all the different menus to see what is available.
The file configuration menu is very important and must
be modified for floppy or hard disk use. If the
correct path or drive is not chosen, Qmodem may stop
"dead in it's tracks" when downloading a file. Why?
Because it doesn't know where to send the file.
Help screens are present throughout the program;
during installation and while running the package.
The latest version, SST, is a bit cumbersome to run on
a floppy system. Although all the essential files
will fit on a single floppy disk you must choose which
help file you wish to use: QINSTALL.HLP or QMODEM.HLP.
Both files will not fit on a single floppy along with
the other necessary files.
Qmodem supports several protocols for uploading and
downloading files, The most common is XMODEM and
YMODEM. Both have error checking capabilities.
We finished the meeting by logging on to the SLO BYTES
BBS. I demonstrated how to send and receive messages,
upload and download files, and set up a script file
for auto log on. Unfortunately, probably due to the
storm outside, we were unable to log on to GENIE, a
commercial "electronic" service provided by General
Electric Company.
Other activities at the meeting included voting for a
new vice president (Sam Powers elected) and a
discussion on changing meetings to the first Sunday of
each month starting in September.
Next month our tireless president will conduct both
the early and general meetings (doesn't he always)!
For those of you having difficulty making certain
programs work on your computer, come to the early
meeting where George will demonstrate how to decipher
all those weird files on an unfamiliar disk. Which
files run, which require BASIC, what do I look for
first! All these questions and more will be answered
at the early meeting starting at 6:15pm.
After a 15 minute break and a couple puff's on his
trusty pipe, George will be back to present an
overview of computer magazines and trade journals.
Here you may learn which magazines are best for the
new user, or the programmer. Perhaps your main
interest is public domain software. See what's out
there. Come to the next meeting.
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BITS & BYTES
*** Our June and December meetings have been
designated "Swap Meets". At our regular meeting you
will have the opportunity to sell or trade your
unwanted computer accessories or software. This will
be in addition to our regular meeting agenda.
*** The Lung Association is looking for a donation of
an IBM PC or compatible computer. The donation is
fully tax deductible. If can can help out, call John
Rohde at 546-8381.
*** Please, as a courtesy to others, copy no more than
10 disks from the library at one sitting. Remember
these machines are for DISKCOPY or FORMAT only. DON'T
copy individual files from multiple disks as this ties
up a machine for too long. Also sign out for the
disks you are copying. This will aid us in deciding
which disks to purge from the library at a later date.
*** We are still looking for a volunteer to be program
chairman. This would involve writing hardware and
software companies and setting up a program schedule
for future meetings.
*** At our June meeting we will vote on changing our
meeting time and date to the 1st Sunday of each month
at 1:30 pm (new user's) & 2:30 pm (general meeting).
*** Last chance to sign up to win a copy of WordStar
Professional ver 4. Drawing at the meeting.
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NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY
The following disks have been added to our library for
the month of May.
#260 HOMEWARE: An easy way to keep track of all your
household items. Has areas for: 1. Household
inventory, 2. auto maintenance, 3. meal scheduling,
shopping list, 4. mixed drinks, 5. names & addresses,
and 6. hobbies & record keeping.
#261 GAMES: Includes Demolish, Craps, PC-Darts, EGA
Bomb, Deceive, etc. Some require color/EGA monitors.
#262 APPLICATION PROGRAMS: Jaxhost - use distant
computer from your computer, 2 hard disk menuing
programs, speech synthesizer, and Scuba diving
calculator.
#263 UTILITIES I: modify date & time of file, enhanced
screen blanking, RAM resident manager, check memory,
check floppies for fragmentation, GEM notepad
accessory, check for duplicate files on hard disk,
etc.
#264 UTILITIES II: fast file listing, memory resident
print spooler, change formats between wordprocessors,
preselect COM1 or COM2, wait n seconds in batch file
before continuing, test speed of your RAM, etc.
#265 GRAPHICS: advanced ANSI drivers, create large
letters on screen with BIGECHO, clip art for Ventura
Publishing, multiple font banner maker. (some may
require color graphics)
** Note: these disks will be available on our bulletin
board approximately one week before the next meeting.
UPDATES:
#259 PC-RR will have documentation for all you rail-
road buffs!
DEMO DISKS:
#68 FRAMEWORK II by Ashton-Tate
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